


unrequited

by Aquaphobe



Series: un-titled [4]
Category: South Park
Genre: (Or is it?), Awkwardness, M/M, One-Sided Crush, Oneshot, POV Craig Tucker, Post-Canon, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28428483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquaphobe/pseuds/Aquaphobe
Summary: The facts of the matter are simple.Craig Tucker is 10 years old. He like-likes Tweek Tweak. They have been fake boyfriends for half a year. It has been the best six months of his life.All of the above statements are true, and that is good. Craig likes facts, but more than that, he likestruefacts. When things are black and white, there's no way that he can possibly slip up. Clean cut and tidy, that's how life should be.Pity Clyde Donovan had to go ruin it for him.
Relationships: Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak
Series: un-titled [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/956469
Comments: 10
Kudos: 77





	unrequited

**Author's Note:**

> a little bonus fic for all the _un-titled_ fans out there. i figured we could all do with a treat, after the weirdness and the stress of 2020. :))
> 
> (can be read as a standalone.)

The facts of the matter are simple.

Craig Tucker is 10 years old. He like-likes Tweek Tweak. They have been fake boyfriends for half a year. It has been the best six months of his life.

All of the above statements are true, and that is good. Craig likes facts, but more than that, he likes _true_ facts. When things are black and white, there's no way that he can possibly slip up. Clean cut and tidy, that's how life should be.

Which is why he doesn't really see the point in changing the status quo. He and Tweek make a good fake couple. They have fun together. They get to hang out and have sleepovers whenever they want, even on school nights. Craig doesn't have to share Tweek with anyone. His crazy smiles. His babbling. His obsession with conspiracy theories. He gets to keep Tweek all to himself.

"Isn't that kinda, like, selfish though?" Clyde asks around a bulging mouthful of chocolate fudge cake. There are brown smears all over his chin, and his hands are sticky. Craig considers telling him he's gross, but then decides it's too much effort. Clyde would just get upset, and then he'd be covered in boogers too. Which would be worse. Definitely.

In the end Craig settles on a shrug, scooping a bite of cheesecake onto the tines of his fork. "No. Why?"

They're sat in the shitty diner on the edge of CtPa Town, in the building where Red Lobster used to be. It's tacky, the linoleum seats are sticky which suggests no one's bothered wiping them down since their grand opening four months ago, and everything smells faintly of seafood still. Or maybe that's just Craig's imagination. Funny, since Craig never really thought he had one.

"Uhh, yeah it is, dude," the brunet insists. Crumbs spray out from his mouth as he talks. Craig leans away.

"No," he says again, because he really can't see the problem. Tweek's _his_ fake boyfriend, not anyone else's. "We agreed it was good this way. He'd tell me if he didn't like it."

Clyde sort of scrunches up his face. It's a look Craig doesn't know what to make of. "This is Tweek we're talking about."

Should he be offended that his best friend thinks he's too stupid to keep track of that fact? Mostly he just feels gross. "Yeah. I know."

The plump boy pauses, putting his fork back down on his plate so hard that the tines squeak as they scrape over the ceramic. The mom-and-daughter combo three tables to their right turn to glance in their direction. Craig chews slowly on his mouthful and stares right back. When they don't look away after a while, he flips them the bird. The mother makes a high harrumphing noise and turns back around in the booth, telling her kid to do the same. Good.

"Look, Craig, try be serious for once," Clyde says, leaning back against the faux leather, his Captain America fleece stretching over his belly. "You like him, don't you?"

Craig, stuck somewhere between nonplussed and bemused, blinks one slow blink. What kind of question is that?

"As in _like_ -like him."

"We're fake dating," Craig says, very slowly, to make it clear he thinks it's _Clyde_ who's got something wrong with his head. Because although he's shared with his best friend that their relationship isn't real, he's been very careful not to let his crush on Tweek be too obvious. He's been practicing his acting and everything. "I told you that."

His best friend gives the world's longest sigh and waves one hand in the air at Craig. "You're hopeless. You're so far in the closet you don't even know you like-like your own boyfriend."

Okay, so that's annoying. Craig frowns, ignoring the warmth crawling up the back of his neck. "It's fake," he clarifies again, this time a little more firmly. Clyde doesn't need to know. No one does. It's no one's business but his, and he won't admit it for anything.

Clyde apparently figures out that he's upset his best friend, because he just gives up, saying in a snooty tone that makes Craig itch to kick him, "Alright, dude, but don't come crying to me when all this goes wrong somewhere down the line 'cause you're, like, too emotionally constipated to say out loud that you have a crush on him."

"Out of the two of us, I'm not the one who's a crybaby," Craig says in a drawling voice he knows will grate on Clyde's nerves.

Right as always, he ducks to the side as Clyde flings a forkful of his chocolate fudge cake at him. It splatters against the stained tabletop in the booth behind him, and the brunet pauses to stare mournfully after it, subject briefly forgotten.

Not for Craig, though. Something about it grates. He feels flustered.

Discontent, he shifts in his seat, props his chin in his palm, and stares out the smudged window at the quiet street beyond, his interest in his cheesecake totally lost.

It's silly, he thinks. Clyde's wrong. How could this possibly come back to bite him? It's just a harmless crush. It'll go away with time.

...

No matter how much he tries to distract himself over the course of the next five days though, Clyde's words stick with him.

He lays along the length of the couch in the living room and replays the conversation until his mom shoos him out of the way for 'moping around'.

He thinks about it while cleaning the tires on his bike with a long cut of cloth, not even noticing when he gets black grease on his hands from the chain.

He even contemplates the issue during bathtime with so much focus that he almost drops his cellphone into the bubbly water.

Worst, though, is school time. Craig finds himself pondering over it right in the middle of History class last period on Friday, as the sun's pouring through the window and spilling over his front-row desk, slowly baking him in his jacket. Instead of feeling sleepy and bored, like he would usually, he finds his brain ticking over the words. Instead of trying to prop himself up behind a book to subtly take a nap, he finds his neck warm and itching, hyperaware of the seat behind him. Tweek's tapping his foot, growling under his breath, and shuffling his papers every two seconds.

Normally Craig finds it easy to tune the blonde boy's fidgeting out, but right then, he can't seem to manage it. Truthfully (because if there's one thing that Craig values, it's the truth), he hasn't been able to all week. Every time he catches Tweek chewing loudly on his nails, or spilling coffee over his knuckles, he gets a jerky sensation in his stomach. Craig can't help but watch the way the blonde boy picks apart every bite of his food in the canteen, shredding sandwiches and pizza slices, eating his macaroni cheese one segment of pasta at a time. He finds himself hooked listening to how his fake boyfriend gets stuck on a thought halfway through a sentence, distracted by some noise or by a light catching his eye.

The point is, Craig is starting to feel weird, because usually those things wouldn't stand out to him, and he wouldn't mind reaching out to share his juice box when Tweek chokes on his food, or to remind him of whatever he was rambling about. But it's tricky right now. Just looking Tweek in his big green eyes is tricky. It sucks.

...

As final bell rings, Craig turns around in his seat, unable to keep himself from peeking at his fake boyfriend any longer. Tweek pushes up to his feet and yelps as he stands too quickly from his desk, tripping himself on his loose shoelaces. The rest of the class ignores him as he scrambles back upright, face red as a tomato and nose scrunching up. Craig glances away before Tweek can catch him looking, because it's cute and it makes him uncomfortable feeling that way. Is it wrong of him, he wonders, to keep it secret from Tweek that he thinks he's cute?

The blonde stumbles his way up to Craig's chair and starts talking about a conspiracy theory on some new government official or something, cellphone already in hand as he scrolls through an article. Craig, thankful that the shorter boy's hands aren't free, stuffs his mittens on and shoves his fists into his jacket pockets. Tweek's nails are chewed short and grubby, and that's why he doesn't want to hold hands, is all. That's what he tells himself.

He's not convinced that's the truth though, so he ends up with his stomach growing heavier.

They're walking home together today because Tweek said he thinks the bus is rigged with explosives. The walk's not that long anyway, not with the sun shining like it is.

It's usually nice being in the corridors with the girls smiling and cooing at them, but today the weird feeling in his belly gets more uncomfortable with every glance and giggle. By the time they're out in the crisp air, slushy snow squelching under their heels and Tweek bumping their shoulders together, Craig just wants to go home and tidy up his bedroom, or something. Wash the clothes he's wearing, because he feels sticky, like the linoleum chairs in the diner.

Tweek doesn't notice though, too busy clinging to his arm and rattling off facts about how dangerous it can be to drink water right from the faucet without boiling it. Craig stares down at his shoes and thinks longingly of bedtime, and of his trip out to Denver tomorrow to visit his friend Thomas.

Some new scenery, he thinks, and someone who doesn't know or care about any of this. That'll be nice.

...

"D'you wanna stay over for the night?" Tweek asks him later that evening, blue ink on his cheek where he'd been tapping his felt pen in thought.

It's dark out, and Tweek's room is really cluttered with all his Legos spread over the floor. There are empty mugs everywhere, the room smells earthy and sweet like old coffee and the freshly baked cinnamon rolls they gorged themselves on after dinner. Craig just wants to sit down at Tweek's desk and color code all of his crayons, or maybe go to sleep. On his own. In his own bed. By himself. The last thing he wants is to hang out in the Tweak household, where Mr Tweak talks loudly for hours about coffee beans, and Mrs Tweak keeps popping up to make sure the bedroom door is still open. Craig's tired from so much thinking all week, legs heavy and eyes too dry. He just... wants to switch off.

Which is why, when he looks up from where he's slumped on the carpet by the foot of Tweek's bed to see the shorter boy smiling at him with those big green eyes, he says very decisively, "Okay."

... Damn it.

Tweek's grin widens until his nose wrinkles, and then he's looking away to hunch over his crumpled piece of paper again, stabbing at his picture of... something blobby with so much enthusiasm, Craig's surprised the pen doesn't smoosh right through the page and into the carpet. Not that it'd matter, really, considering all the other odd stains it's littered with.

"You wanna play Mario Cart later when my dad's finished with the T.V.?" By which Craig knows Tweek means, ' _do you want to play Mario Cart while I flap around and panic you're gonna run your cart off the course, because playing it myself freaks me out too much?_ ' To which the answer is a resounding no. Craig Does Not want to play Mario Cart, if only for the fact that Mr Tweak doesn't leave the T.V. until around 10pm. He would very much like an early night. Unlike Tweek, Craig likes his sleep.

Opening his mouth to tell Tweek as much, he pauses when the round-faced boy stops drawing and shoves the picture at him proudly. Now right way up, Craig can see that it's a picture of _them_ , sat on a couch, Craig with a potato-shaped squiggle for his chullo cap and Tweek with a scribble of yellow hair. Their dot eyes and wobbly mouths make it very clear they're smiling at each other. Craig's heavy tummy gets, if possible, even heavier. His neck goes hot again, too. "Oh," he says. "It's us."

"Yeah! And, look, right here, we're playing Mario Carts," Tweek says, tapping the paper with the lid of the pen to point at some red blobs Craig guesses are their hands. "See?"

"Oh," says Craig again, already mourning his early night. "Okay."

He curses the fact that he can't tell Tweek no for anything, and resigns himself to a long, miserable train journey tomorrow.

...

It is indeed a long journey, and Craig is most definitely miserable.

By the time he gets off at the station in Denver, he feels the need to change into something fresh, because some old man sat behind him was sneezing every two minutes, and Craig's probably just overtired but he really, really doesn't want to be here right now, least of all in dirty clothes. He wants a hot shower. And his bed. Has he mentioned his bed? Because, yeah, he's running on four hours sleep and that's only half as much as he needs, by his calculations. Also, the Tweak family guest room was too cold. He couldn't feel his toes all night. Why won't they just let him crash in Tweek's bedroom, where the heating works?

Well and truly despondent, he steps down onto the platform with his rucksack and his lack of sleep, and he peers around listlessly until he spots Thomas standing by the sliding doors. As always, the dark blonde boy is by himself, yellow shirt a crumpled mess and face thin. Craig reaches his side and breathes out in relief when Thomas twitches, swears, and says very calmly, "Hi."

Ah. Finally. A comrade in quietness. Craig dips his head and gives Thomas what he likes to think is a somber look. It involves a grimace and a very small nod of his head. "Hi," he replies.

Thomas yelps something about asslickers, and then they get on their way, ducking around crowds and waiting at the bus stop in west LoDo, where Thomas says his mom'll pick them up in 15 minutes, sharp.

They don't talk. They don't touch. Craig watches Thomas shout rude words and mumble apologies to passersby, brown eyes rarely leaving his clean white trainers, and Craig begins to think that this weekend might not be so bad at all. Maybe he can convince Thomas to let him organize his bookshelves again? That was nice, last time. Especially since laundry seems off the cards. Not that it matters. Thomas' house is clean and quiet, and Craig thinks it'll be nice.

...

Well, turns out it isn't so nice, after all.

This is mostly because the quiet between them as Thomas plays with his Chinpokomon figurines and Craig builds in Minecraft gives Craig a lot of time to think. Considering how much time he's had for that already this week, he had assume he'd had enough. Unfortunately, he'd been wrong. It turns out that Craig is actually really good at thinking about the subject of Tweek Tweak for a very long time. Especially if it involves feeling bad for crushing on his fake boyfriend and not saying anything to him. Craig suspects he'll never get sick of thinking about the subject.

Or, no, that's not quite true, because he's been sick of it since the moment Clyde brought it up in the diner. Now, he's stuck on this dumb loop regardless of how bad he feels or how much he dislikes it.

Not even Thomas' loud and creative cursing, or his occasional flail, are enough to cheer Craig up.

It gets so bad after an hour and a half of protracted silence, that Craig stops mining a basement for his house and, before he can stop himself, blurts out, "I got a boyfriend."

There's a pause following his statement, in which he stares at his ugly block character on the screen, holds his breath, and wonders if it might be weird if he just excuses himself from the room. His neck prickles when Thomas pauses to look up at him, and he fiddles with the controller to make it look like he's still playing.

" _Shit— shit_. Y-you got a what?"

Feeling stupid on a whole new level, Craig pauses his game, sets the controller down in his lap, and turns to look at the other boy.

Thomas is frowning - not like he cares, but like he _doesn't_ , and he can't see the point in the conversation. His lack of interest makes Craig feel the odd need to clarify his statement.

"I said, I got a boyfriend." He stops. Tries to think of a smoother explanation. "As in, I'm dating someone who's got a dick." That should do it.

"You think I don't know what 'boyfriend' means? _Cocklover, ass-tastic._ "

Craig, a little confused by the lack of reaction after everyone in South Park's been making such a big deal about it for the last six months, does not go back to his game. Instead, he hears himself saying, "It's this boy called Tweek."

"Cool," Thomas replies with the kind of forced calm that suggests what he really means is, 'this is about at interesting to me as a dog turd.' Craig knows that tone, because it's the one his dad uses all the time on his mom.

As caught up as he is in the novelty of someone not sticking their nose into his business, Craig doesn't notice the weight beginning to lift from his stomach.

After a beat, he decides to describe Tweek to Thomas. Maybe how his eyes are big, or how his nose scrunches up, or how Craig can never, ever, tell him no anymore. What comes out, though, is, "He's... weird." Which isn't wrong. Tweek _is_ weird. He's different from everyone else and doesn't care about that at all. It's one of the reasons Craig like-likes him, probably.

"What do you mean, 'weird'?" Thomas asks, drawing Craig out of his thoughts.

Swallowing back the urge to just clam up and shrug it off, Craig stares down at his lap and make a face as he thinks it over. How can he explain that he like-likes Tweek, without sounding super gay? "I mean, he's good at lots of stuff, but he's mostly just loud and panicky. Like a guinea pig."

Ugh. Bad choice, Tucker. Heat burns his ears.

"A – _fuck-me-sideways_ – a guinea pig?" Thomas squawks, and Craig refuses to meet his eyes, tilting his head back to stare up at the blue ceiling.

He clarifies, "Everything scares him. He shakes and squeaks all the time, but mostly when things startle him." He scratches the side of his head, beneath one of the earflaps on his hat. Adds on, "He likes coffee. A lot."

Craig hums, not particularly pleased but also not cringing in horror at his attempt to talk about Tweek.

Also, he gets the pleasure of having Thomas gape at him, at a loss for words. He bites the inside of his cheek to stop from smirking, unpauses his game, and keeps on building.

Eventually, Thomas unfreezes too.

In the wake of that conversation, the rest of the day isn't so bad.

...

Saturday night, he crashes on Thomas' bedroom floor, on a blow-up mattress they inflate with a bike pump. They find a sleeping bag in the bottom of the airing cupboard and steal a cushion off the couch, and then they clamber into their pajamas, Craig yawning so wide his jaw clicks. Thomas looks just as sleepy, or maybe kinda sad, but then again he always does.

It's odd, he thinks, slumping down on his makeshift bed and peering around the room. Happy blue walls, pristine posters of Transformers and Bob's Burgers and Spiderman. A framed photo of Thomas and his mom on his bedside. A clean carpet, a tidy cupboard, a desk with neatly stacked schoolbooks. Thomas' room reminds Craig a lot of _his_. Except for the... total lack of any crazy South Park stuff. No superhero costumes, no Manbearpig pamphlets, no alien paraphernalia. How can Thomas be unhappy, when he lives somewhere so normal? Craig doesn't get it. All he wants is to have a normal life, like Thomas has.

" _Fucktard, fuck. Stupid shit_."

Plus, Thomas gets to swear at teachers whenever he likes. Thomas is _so_ lucky.

"I'm turning the lights out," the older boy says, and Craig slumps down against his couch cushion, legs akimbo.

"Okay." The relief of going to bed at a normal time makes even more of his unhappiness ease away, even though Thomas is super clumsy in the dark, and ends up standing right on Craig's stomach on his quest to get back to his own bed. He wheezes and shoves the shorter boy's foot aside, eyes watering and legs curling upwards. All he can squeeze out is a bemused, "Dude."

"Sorry," Thomas replies, not really sounding sorry at all.

Staring up at the ceiling, Craig let's his mouth curl up into a proper smile, even as he rubs the ache out of his belly.

He was right, he thinks, to look forward to visiting Tommy. _Thomas_ , he corrects himself, even though the name just reminds him of his dad.

Well, whatever, he thinks, as he breathes in the faint smell of dust and laundry detergent. It's been good. He likes it here.

...

The train ride back to South Park isn't so bad, really, since Craig has his airpods, a ham sandwich, and a carton of chocolate milk. He spends a long time listening to awesome 80's rock, his favourite music genre, before the thoughts begin to worm their way into his brain again.

That lightness from being as Thomas' house stays with him, but still he thinks over Clyde's words. Is he lying to Tweek because he _doesn't_ want to get all the chicks anymore? He just wants Tweek. It's probably unfair to keep quiet about that sort of thing, huh?

When the train screeches its way to a halt in South-South, Craig gathers up his rucksack and clambers off onto the platform.

He pauses, fingers tight on the straps of his bag, when he spots not only his mom, but Tweek, right beside her. His heart kind of does a jolt, and his belly squirms. Why is Tweek here, right now, when he's decided to be honest. Why couldn't he have the rest of the day to himself to get used to the idea first?

Craig doesn't have much time to get upset over it though, because Tweek's waving so hard it's a surprise his hand doesn't go flying off his wrist, trotting toward him at full speed. Craig's face does something ugly, because he can't decide if he should smile or not. The blonde boy doesn't seem to notice, just flings his arms around Craig's neck the second that he's in reaching distance.

"Did you have a good weekend?" Craig's mom asks, looking all smug with her dumb smirk and her dumb flowery dress and her dumb need to bring Tweek here with her without letting Craig know first.

Frowning at his mom for screwing this up, Craig just grunts in response to her question, mostly because he wants to communicate that he's mad with her, but also because Tweek's crushing the air out of his bruised belly, and he's got a mouthful of candy scented hair. He returns the hug with a couple of back pats and glowers at his mom.

"I'll go start up the car," Laura Tucker says, when the length of the hug starts getting awkward, and Craig thinks he might be starting to turn purple. "You boys take your time, okay?" Traitor, he thinks with bubbling panic, as his mom turns and wanders down the steps to the car park.

Only when the blonde woman's head is no longer visible, does Craig squirm his way loose from Tweek's grabby hands and sweet-smelling hair.

It's another bright day, and the rays of sunshine turn Tweek's big green eyes and wide, wonky smile into something special, like he's a human-shaped flower. His wild hair catches the light and turns to gold.

"I missed you," Tweek says, tight grip transferring to his scruffy blonde hair. "Token tried to show me how his surround sound thingy worked, and, and he said it definitely didn't send out dangerous electronic waves, but there was this super high pitched sound and he swore he couldn't hear it, and I knew _you'_ d listen to me. You think it could be dangerous? Should we try making him get rid of them? I don't wanna let him die just 'cause he's rich, dude, but I couldn't tell him on my own. That's _way_ too much pressure. _Gragh_."

As he listens, Craig feels his whole face turning pink. Tweek's so loud and busy, but it's easy to forget how much he likes that when he's stressed, or when he's away in Denver, somewhere quiet.

Here, Craig thinks, are the facts:

Craig Tucker is 10 years old. He like-likes Tweek Tweak. They have been fake boyfriends for half a year. It has been the best six months of his life.

And most importantly, he wants Tweek to know how he feels. He wants it to be real when they hold hands, or when Tweek hugs him, or when he talks to Thomas or Clyde about his boyfriend.

Taking a deep breath, Craig Tucker gathers up every last bit of his courage, stares Tweek right in the eye, and says firmly. "I missed you too." A pause. "And I think I like you. For real." Craig's heart races in his chest. The back of his neck is burning hot. His ears are so warm they might set his hat on fire. Losing control of his tongue, he adds on, "You're cute. Not in a girlie way, but." He scuffs his shoe against the concrete. "Uhm. Yeah."

Tweek's smile widens, and he rocks forward on his toes, letting go of his handful of hair long enough to sock Craig lightly in the shoulder. "Aw man, you're cute too, I guess? N-no. _Gah_ , that's weird." He pulls a scrunched up sort of face and stuffs his thumbnail into his mouth to chew. Craig listens, stomach beginning to drop. "This is dumb. Is it for practice? Because I'm not a good actor?" The blonde boy peers about then, searching for some invisible cause. "You think someone'll guess we're faking it?"

Craig's face falls, all the warmth draining away. He should clarify, he thinks, that it's for real. He should make it clear that he has a crush, a proper one, and that he wants them to be proper boyfriends. He should, he knows it.

But Tweek has already shrugged his comments off, and is rambling about Token's sound system again, reaching out for Craig's hand and dragging him towards the stairs. Craig doesn't _want_ to say it again. His words have dried up on his tongue, and he's starting to feel like an idiot.

Of course Tweek doesn't like him that way. Not yet. But maybe he will, in the future. Craig just has to come up with a better plan. Something that'll not only make his feelings clear, but that'll make Tweek fall for him, too.

Until then, this is fine. He can deal with his crush being unrequited. Whatever. At least Clyde can't say he didn't try.

**Author's Note:**

> happy new year, everyone! here's to 2021 being just a little bit better than 2020! <33


End file.
